of the Maroons did not surrender until mid-March, by which time the conflict had proved to be very costly to the island, and resulted in the ruin of many plantations and estates. Balcarres used the contrived breach of treaty as a pretext to deport most of the Trelawny Town Maroons to Nova Scotia. Walpole was disgusted with the governor's actions, pointing out that he had given the Maroons his word that they would not be transported off the island. Walpole resigned his commission, and went back to England, where he became an MP and protested in vain in the House of Commons how Balcarres had behaved in a duplicitous and dishonest way with the Maroons. However, Secretary of War Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, supported the governor's decision to deport the Maroons. In 1796, about 581 Trelawny Maroons were transported to Nova Scotia, but another 58 stayed behind in Jamaica, and either forged careers as free persons of colour, or joined Accompong Town. During the ship's voyage 17 Maroons died. During the first winter between 1796–97, which was a bitter one, another 19 Maroons died. During this winter, another five Maroons were born, and in 1797 the surgeon John Oxley counted 550 Maroons in Nova Scotia. After a few years the Maroons were upset with the poor accommodation in Canada. Led by Montague James, the Maroons asked to be transported to the new British settlement of Sierra Leone in West Africa. The British government eventually agreed, and the Maroons travelled to Freetown at the start of the nineteenth century. Palmer died within a month of arriving with the Jamaican Maroons in Sierra Leone. After slavery was abolished in 1838, the Jamaican colonial authorities imported labourers from Sierra Leone, and among that number were scores of Trelawny Town Maroons. Among those who returned was Peter Campbell, whose flogging had sparked the Second Maroon War. These Returned Maroons established themselves in nearby Flagstaff, and their descendants are still there today. Runaways fighting for Trelawny Town Hundreds of runaway slaves secured their freedom by escaping and fighting alongside the Maroons of Trelawny Town. The runaways fighting on the side of Trelawny Town may have outnumbered the Trelawny Maroons warriors. About half of these runaways surrendered with the Maroons, and many were executed or re-sold in slavery to Cuba. However, a few hundred stayed out in the forests of the Cockpit Country, and they